


The Devil on Your Shoulder

by randi2204



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Demonic Possession, Demons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-03 03:04:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11523210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randi2204/pseuds/randi2204
Summary: Inez believes in good and evil, and the devils that drive men.





	The Devil on Your Shoulder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [farad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** These characters are not mine; they belong to MGM, Mirisch, and Trilogy.

Inez believed in good and evil.  She knew Señora Travis would scoff at the idea, perhaps say that belief was instilled by her Catholic upbringing, drilled into her by priests promising dire consequences should evil get its claws into the world.

 

But she _believed_ ; she had seen both evil and good, not just in what men do, but in the men themselves.

 

Old Padre Miguel had taught her when she was just a small girl that men have both angels and devils driving them, that they live not just in a man’s actions but in his mind, in his visage, practically on his shoulders.  She had not thought of the old padre in many years (had he still been alive, Don Paulo would _never_ have thought he could get away with what he had attempted), but now, living here in this tiny town, he was seldom far from her mind.

 

There was evil here, she had no doubt of it… but it was an evil that could not be easily rooted out, something so ingrained that she doubted even her most fervent prayers would shift it.

 

At first, she had thought that it had merely been a reflection of the sunset in Señor Buck’s face, giving it an orange cast through the window.  But then he’d turned his head and she had nearly recoiled at the grotesque features, though which she could barely see Buck’s own more familiar face.  It was as if he wore a mask, something painted over his face that turned it awful and demonic – something with thick lips and rounded cheeks and little beady eyes peering out at the world.

 

She must have made some sound, because he turned to her and immediately that evil face melted away, and _Buck_ looked up at her, concern stamped across his features.  “Inez? Everything all right, darlin’?”

 

“Yes,” she managed, “yes, it’s fine.” But her voice shook as she spoke, and it was clear from his worried frown that he didn’t believe her.  She retreated to the kitchen and stayed there the rest of the night.

 

Later, as she prepared for sleep that she wasn’t sure would come, she thought about what she’d seen – or, perhaps, what she _imagined_ she’d seen.  _Perhaps,_ she thought, staring up at the darkened ceiling, _perhaps it was nothing, just a trick of the light…_ But no, the fleshy jowls and greedy eyes that she’d seen could not have been a simple trick of the light; for the instant that she’d seen them, they had been more real, somehow, than Buck’s own handsome features.

 

Though she watched warily in the following days, she did not see Buck’s face change again in the sunset, or indeed at any other time, and he treated her as he always did, with that cocksure certainty that eventually she would give in to his charms.  Inez scoffed at him, and eventually she stopped thinking about that strange, demonic face she imagined she’d seen.

 

Only… she knew she hadn’t really imagined it.  And the next time it happened, it wasn’t Buck whose face she saw so altered; it was another one of the _Magnificos_.

 

It was late in the evening; the sun had already set, so it was dark in the corner of the saloon where Señor Vin usually sat.  At first, Inez thought that the violet tinge across his face was just a shadow.  But when the lamp flickered, the shadow across his face didn’t dance with it, and Inez felt a shiver run up and down her back. 

 

Then, daring the devil by getting too close, she dropped off a fresh beer and collected his empty glass.  And she saw it, like a mask floating over his face; another visage, with lines around the eyes like Vin’s own, but with a cruel cast, a permanent sneer on the too-wide mouth, and twisted horns on either side of his head, poking through his thick hair.

 

Her heart pounding heavily in her chest, she retreated back behind the bar, unable to hide the way her hands shook.  Thankfully the saloon was nearly empty that night, so it wasn’t long before Vin finished his beer and tipped his hat to her, his face his own once more.  Shortly afterwards, Inez hustled the last few customers out and fled to her room, barring the door solidly behind her.

 

When she knelt to pray as she usually did, the words would not come.  The only thing she could think was _Please, O Lord, keep me safe._   For if the _Magnificos_ were not as they had once appeared… who would protect her now?

 

She was even more jumpy in the wake of what she had seen of Señor Vin, guarded around him and Buck, and even around the others.  And of course, they noticed.

 

“Inez, darlin’,” Buck asked her, his voice low as he leaned on the bar, and she couldn’t help but be glad that there was that barrier between them, “you sure you’re all right? Nothin’s botherin’ you?”

 

She managed the expected response – a roll of her eyes, a tart “I am _fine_ , nothing is wrong.”  But there was a sliver of doubt in Buck’s expressive face as he pushed away from the bar.  Later, standing in the store room and taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that she couldn’t continue to act that way; she had been friendly with the _Magnificos_ , and if she kept on this way… well, Buck was already suspicious; it wouldn’t do to keep attracting his attention any more than she usually did.

 

Making the only choice she could, Inez pushed aside her wariness and tried to resume her former camaraderie with the town’s protectors.  But it wasn’t easy, and she knew they knew something had happened; they just didn’t know _what._

 

_Which,_ she thought, sighing, _is only fair, since I don’t know either._   And she didn’t, not _really_ , but she could feel the evil hovering close, just past her shoulder… or, perhaps, just past the shoulders of the _Magnificos_.

 

When she happened to glance at Señor Ezra, she began to realize just what was going on.  He, too, seemed to have a strange mask hovering over his face; small horns curving up from its brow, a leer carved into its features, the dark eyes glittering with knowledge and… _heat_.  Inez felt her pulse quicken as that gaze raked over her; she felt as if she had been completely undressed in the middle of the saloon, even though she still wore her clothes.

 

The strangest thing, though, was the dark blue tinge to his otherwise fair skin.  _It’s afternoon_ , she thought, not a little frantically, _and the sun always strikes his table, so it can’t be a shadow…_

 

The other men at Señor Ezra’s table – from the stagecoach that had come through yesterday – didn’t seem to notice anything wrong.  They did not stare, nor point, nor exclaim; they simply played poker, and waited all unknowing for Señor Ezra to empty their pockets.

 

And that _look_ was directed not at Inez as she had first thought, but at the pile of bills and coins and poker chips on the table in front of him.

 

Inez delivered the drinks to the men losing to Señor Ezra, then retreated behind the bar to the kitchen.  She closed the door and sank down to the floor with her back against it, her arms wrapped around her knees.  _I know now what I am seeing,_ she thought, and shivered.  She had wondered that very thing so many times since that very first evening.  But now that she had that answer, it didn’t bring her the comfort she had believed it would.  It only raised another question.  _Dios mio,_ why _am I seeing it?_

 

The next day was Sunday, and Inez devoted considerably more time to her prayers that morning.  She was still kneeling in the church long after everyone else had filed out, and Padre Josiah was sweeping the floor around her, giving her sidelong looks that spoke of his worry louder than any words could have.  Before he could interrupt her, though, she crossed herself and hurried back to the saloon.  _If he were to ask,_ she thought, removing the shawl from over her hair, _I could not but tell him…_

 

She didn’t believe that Padre Josiah would reveal what she said to anyone else… but at the same time, she was afraid that he _might_.

 

_Padre Miguel,_ she prayed that evening before retiring, her rosary wound around her fingers, _I wish you were here to tell me what I should do…_

 

Because, _Dios la proteja_ , she could _see_ the devils that drove those men, the seven who protected the town, who had protected _her_.

 

It became even easier to see after that, though she couldn’t say why.  Sometimes all she had to do was peer out the corner of her eye, and she could see those _other_ features, those evil-looking masks.  She didn’t _want_ to; she wished she had never seen them at all, wished that she could still call the _Magnificos_ her friends.  But at times, it felt like she _had_ to look, _had_ to see the evil that hid within them.

 

And when she did, when she _saw_ the devils on each of their shoulders, in their faces… _It hurts,_ she thought, rubbing her chest over her heart, but it didn’t help.  _Madre de Dios, it hurts my soul._   It was a deep ache that sharpened painfully with every glance, every time she saw those demonic masks.

 

Young JD wore his heart on his sleeve; every emotion he felt crossed his face.  But Inez had never seen such a petulant look on his features; an unhappy frown, filled with a kind of yearning, and a greenish tinge to his skin.  Not of illness, that sickly hue that even the flush of drink couldn’t cover, but the green of grass in a rich pasture.  She saw it often – more often than any of the others’ other faces.  It saddened her that one so young could be so… corrupted.  At the same time, though, when the _Magnificos_ sat together in the saloon of an evening, she rarely saw any face but JD’s own, wreathed in smiles.

 

Those evenings taught her that hope was a dangerous, dangerous thing.

 

It was disconcerting to see the red tint in Señor Nathan’s dark skin – not red like the Indians, either.  No, the red infusing his face was the red of blood, the red of an angry sky.  The features that floated over his own were locked into a permanent scowl, brows drawn sharply down, pointed teeth bared in a snarl.  Thick horns rose from his temples, spiraling back toward his ears, and then forward again, coming to a point along the line of his jaw.  It was all the more startling – and frightening – compared to his usual gentler demeanor.  Whenever Inez saw Nathan looking like that, she crossed herself and tried not to draw his attention; if she was able, she went somewhere else entirely.

 

If she saw JD’s other face often, she very rarely saw Señor Chris’s.  In fact, she’d only ever seen it twice.  The first time, he had been on his way out of the saloon, and she wasn’t entirely certain until much later what she’d seen.  The second time, Chris had been seated in one of the chairs on the boardwalk, in full daylight, and she could not mistake it as she swept the saloon floor.

 

His face had a blue cast – lighter than the blue that shadowed Señor Ezra’s face when his demon appeared, but still disconcertingly present. _Perhaps_ , she thought, a desperate feeling clawing at her throat, _perhaps it is just a reflection of his shirt?_ But Señor Chris wore only black today.  The features were not his own, either, a mockery of his own expression.  Where normally he was stoic or angry or even sometimes faintly amused, the mask over his face showed nothing but sorrow, down to unshed tears in eyes that did not fit such demonic features.  Even the horns poking from his temples were bowed downward.

 

A lump formed in her throat, and she hurried to put her broom aside and retreat to the kitchen, where no one could see the tears in her eyes.  For if she saw the devil driving Señor Chris… _I believed they were all such_ good _men,_ she thought, and wiped her face.  Were none of them free? Were none of them _good_?

 

The only _Magnifico_ she hadn’t seen with the devil riding him was Padre Josiah.  Perhaps… perhaps he _didn’t_ have one, then.  Her hopes rose at the thought.  If only one of the _Magnificos_ was free from that taint… then maybe – oh, please! – maybe they could _all_ be freed.

 

No matter how she watched, Inez could not _see_ the demon that sat on Padre Josiah’s shoulder… if indeed one did.  The longer she went without seeing it, the more she thought – hoped, prayed – he might have overcome whatever it had been, that he had moved through that valley into peace.

 

But that very night, he was well into his cups, and she saw it – a glimpse only, for it was there and gone in the blink of an eye.  It was kin to the ones that goaded Señor Ezra and Señor Buck; the same kind of _want_ lurked in its eyes, and its features were sharp, shrewd, the lips pursed as if considering something.  It was yellow – not a reflection of the lamp, for he sat in the shadowy corner, but as if he had the jaundice, a sickly yellow color over his skin rather than under it.

 

And that… it felt like it pulled the very heart from her.  That evil inhabited each of the men who protected the town, that it had dug claws so deeply into them all that it could cover their faces with its own…

 

_Or maybe,_ she thought, as she had since the beginning, _it’s not that they are evil… just that they are_ men _.  Not angels, not saints, not demons, but_ men _, even the best of whom carry both good and evil within them, so mixed together that it is impossible to remove one entirely._

 

But it felt like a kind of blasphemy to think that, so she shied away from it.  The thought was a comforting one, but this knowledge… this was a cross she had to bear.

 

_I know now_ , she thought, sitting on her bed and staring into the mirror on her dresser.  But her knowledge was heavy; she could see it in the new lines on her face and the slump of her shoulders.

 

She turned away from what the mirror showed her and covered her face with her hands.  _I wish I didn’t._

***   
June 29, 2017

**Author's Note:**

> Written to fill the prompt [Magnificent Seven, Inez, sometimes, when she glanced at one of the seven, she was sure she saw a reflection of the demons that chased them](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/279301.html?thread=10359557#cmt10359557) on [fic_promptly](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/).


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